When In Rome
by Anne O'Brien
Summary: Day One, SuperPhantom Week. Prompt: Past. Sometimes the darkest and the lightest of souls convene together in a rough time to create something magical. Then again...when in Rome...What else are you gonna do in a place like that?


**I hope this isn't too atrocious. **

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**SuperPhantom Week  
Day One: Past**

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Slice, dodge, counter, parry, slice again, pin it against a nearby tree, send your blade flying, sharp side out, and decapitate.

Clean yourself off, don't want to be too dirty. Loot the corpse, make sure it's not Leviathan (stupid sons of bitches), and keep walking. Always moving, keep moving, and never stop. If you stop, you die, and if you die, so does Sam. Eventually at least.

Boots crunch something on the ground.

"What," I whisper, bending down, placing my blade on the soft blanket of moss beside me. My eyes shift to see my surroundings, the fog inhibiting seeing any further than six feet. I glance down to the object crushed under my feet. "A bone. Looks human," I whisper, then noise, behind me. I jump to my feet, blade in hand. My jaw is set, eyes narrowed. Whatever was behind me is long gone. Nothing moves between the trees. I gaze for only a moment longer before moving forward, to my destination.

* * *

_"Holy shit!" I whisper. I crouch the tree, hold myself close to its mossy bark. "That was close," I wipe my forehead, taking a huge breath in to soothe my nerves. I run a hand though my hair, which makes my hands feel terribly dry. I haven't washed my hair in days, and knowing this place, I won't for several more._

_That man I just saw, though, he looked human. I was yet to see a human here, where "here" was. All I knew is that I thrust in here, in my sleep probably, and I've just been trying to stay alive ever since. This place is like a limitless forest. Literally. I've been moving in one direction for the entire time I've been here, and I've yet to see anything but forest. A few small brooks and ponds, but that's it. And the people - the things here. That man was the first human I've seen. I've encountered things with black blood, things with retractable teeth, and there's also been these wolf-like things, but they've never actually attacked me._

_It was scary as hell._

_I looked around, eyes wide. I was not going to get jumped. I was not going to get jumped. I'm sure I could take them on, however. I've killed at least two of the black-blooded things, and one of the things with the teeth. I call the latter vampires, but seeing as vampires don't exist, I'm hoping this all a big crazy nightmare._

_Killing wasn't really a bad thing here, seeing as they weren't human, and they certainly weren't ghosts. I wasn't afraid of them, I think. The worst part is they didn't seem to be afraid of me, either._

_What's that behind_ me_?__  
_

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Circle back around to my previous position. There. Looks human...just a kid. A kid with bright white hair. Okay, I knew that there's this teenage rebellion thing going around, but you can do better than white.

He looks around. Holy...his eyes are this radioactive green. Starting to doubt the humanity of this kid. Stay hidden, don't let him see you, he can't see you.

Otherwise, he looks normal. A red t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, all tattered and dirty. His face was clean. Somehow. Kid looks about fifteen. What the hell was he doing in Purgatory? Then again, what the hell am _I_ doing in Purgatory? Oh right. I saved everybody's asses, then Cas abandoned me. Real sweet of you, by the way, Cas, if you can hear me. Here I am, trying to find your flighty ass and take you back to earth but I swear to God, I think you're trying to avoid me.

Stay focused, gotta stay focused. No! He's gone!

"What the hell?" I whisper, not too loud, he could still be around, but it slips out. But listen. Not even any footsteps as he runs away. The kid literally disappeared into nothing. "Dammit!" I hiss.

I walk to the site of the kid's last visibility. There's barely any evidence of his presence. Very small indents in the moss around the tree. He was a light kid. Probably not much heavier than a buck. My weapon is still readied at my side, but as I stand back up to investigate the scratches on the tree, I'm pinned up against it.

The breath is knocked out of me and I drop my blade in the process. As soon as my vision clears up, I raise my head to see that some kind of green energy is holding me against the tree. It looks like I should be able to pass right through it but somehow, it's tangible. I slowly bring my gaze up to my attacker, my head rising with them.

It's the kid. And dammit, he's floating. I blink and shake my head, but the _kid is floating a foot above the ground_. He's even bobbing. What the hell is this kid? It becomes clear that he is going to die once I get out of here. His left hand is glowing with the same energy that is holding me against the tree. As are his eyes, which he narrows.

"It's not that easy to sneak up on me, you know," he finally says after some time. He's grinning a little. Either insane or really not scared at all. Probably both, by the looks of it. Don't let him see weakness. Just a kid, though. What's the worst he could do?

"I could say the same about myself," I say, sarcastically. Sarcasm covers up emotion, which the kid doesn't need to see. Dammit, he's not a kid, stop referring to him as that. He's a _thing_. A monster. If he's in Purgatory, he's just another monster that needs to be ganked, preferably by me.

The ki-_thing_ considers. "Yeah, you were all shifty with eyes there," he lowers himself to the ground, toes first, and light. "So...you _look_ human...but I don't think I want to take a chance," he takes tentative steps towards me. I don't react. What can I do? My blade is on the ground three feet away. I glance to it, and judge the distance. That's about right. My eyes return to the kid. His gaze followed mine.

"Why so nervous? I'm not going to hurt you," one side of his mouth trickled upward. "I'm not a monster or anything. Not like the ones that hang out around here," all the time we've talked, the only time his eyes have left mine is when I looked to my blade. This thing isn't scared of me at all. It's got nerve, I'll give it that.

"If you're not a monster, then what are you?" the question apparently throws the thing off because he pauses. His gaze shifts to something behind me. Like lightening, the energy enclosing me dissipates, and the kid throws my blade across the three feet. I only get a millisecond or two feel confusion because he yells directions at me.

"To your left, shoulder!" I act without hesitation, swinging my blade towards the unseen enemy. I feel the sharp side hit its mark, my - our enemy fallen. Maybe not dead, but fallen. I whip around, hearing whoops and hollers.

"Son of a bitch..." I whisper, awestruck.

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_Okay, normally I can deal with a few of these sons of bitches, but this many? Not gonna work. And since I just saved this guy's life and he's doing absolutely nothing(!), I'm here fighting off these wolf things with my bare hands. And some help from ecto-blasts but that's beside the point. _

_I knocked one the wolves, about my height, aside, and tried to get an approximation of the sheer numbers of them. At least fifteen. And this crazy, they seem to be working together. Right now, they're ignoring the useless guy, and coming after me, as if they know I'm the one who they need to take down first._

_"Hellloooo-ooo!" I yell to the guy, who I shake out of his stupor. He needs no further instruction. With a practiced hand, he plows through the wolves, almost scary good. This guy has done this before. And he's done this a lot. I don't even have to do anything after he got involved. In about three minutes, the guy had killed all of the wolves. With a single blade that was starting to look less like a blade and more like a medieval torture device. _

_Finally, it was over, and the guy stood, glaring at me, breathing hard. Silence. I stared at all the wolf bodies around me, getting a good look at them. _

_"I want to know what you are," he said, still not letting his guard down. Honestly, I'd been keeping him in the corner of my eye for the last few minutes as well. He looks insane. _

_I heave out a sigh. "You'll think I'm a fruitloop."_

_He frowns. "A _what_?" I shake my head._

_"Nothing. What I am...It's weird, dude."_

_"I've seen a lot of _weird, dude_. I can handle it. Tell me."_

_I breathe in once and tell him. "I'm half-ghost," wincing for the impact of his blade on my neck or on some other parts that I would like to keep. But when I open my eyes, he's just standing there, possibly looking more lax than he was when I closed them. _

_"Half ghost?" he asks, incredulous. I nod. Those two syllables have a certain ring to it. An accent. Midwestern?_

_"Before you say it's impossible, it's not alright? I would explain, but we're not exactly-" I motioned to our surroundings, "-in appropriate conditions for explaining," I grinned awkwardly, but the guy didn't say anything. He looked to be summing me up, looking me down as if determining my Pokémon__ strength level. _

_He speaks, slowly, as if thinking about every word. "If you're only half ghost, then what's the other half?" I look him straight in the eyes. Green. Bright green actually. Not like mine, but still glowing almost. He still has hope of getting out of here. So do I._

_"Human," I say, with finality and truthfulness. "I'm half-human, too."_

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"Human," he says. I sense truth in his voice. "I'm half-human, too."

Dammit.

Then he changes. Or transforms or something. All I know is that I'm almost blinded by this light that is obviously coming from him and I know I don't like it. But when it subsides and I bring my arms down from my head, I see him. Well, not exactly him, but the kid standing in front of me looks exactly like him, the only differences being this kid's hair is black and his eyes are bright blue.

"What the hell?" I have exclaim. In all my years of hunting, nothing like that has ever presented itself to me. And now I see it coming from a kid.

"I'm Danny Fenton," the kid says, holding a hand out. I look at it, my grip tightening on my blade.

"How do you know I won't chop your hand off right now?"

The kid - Danny - smiles. "I know you won't."

I shake his hand. He has a strong grip for a kid. "You're right."

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**I will probably continue this at some point because that ending was the worst thing I have ever written but there's a lot more for SuperPhantom Week that I need to write, so yeah!**


End file.
